


Hanging the Name

by hellgym



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Destroy Ending, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 14:38:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6380281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellgym/pseuds/hellgym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Normandy finally gets off the ground in the aftermath of Shepard's decision, restoration of the comms leaves Kaidan with no choice but to face the truth of Shepard's fate-- whatever it may be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hanging the Name

Major Kaidan Alenko was thirty minutes into a fitful sleep when that familiar mechanical “ksssh” cut through the haze. 

Pulling a grimace, he pried his eyes open and saw only an expanse of black, mottled by tiny pinpricks of light. The couch pressed mercilessly against his sore back. He tasted something metallic.

“Kaidan?” A familiar voice, humming and rasping as usual, but with that careful tone he’d had come to expect. “I… didn’t want to wake you, but...” 

Garrus trailed off, looking everywhere but at Kaidan. His mandibles twitched. 

Were the circumstances different, Kaidan would’ve smiled at the turian, told him to relax a bit. They were not, however, and the palpable tension in the room wasn't about to let them forget it.

“Yeah, Garrus?”

“Comms are almost up.”

Kaidan felt his heart plummet, settling deep and heavy in his stomach as dread turned his blood to bitter-cold slush. Garrus’s face was unreadable, but Kaidan knew they both understood what that meant. 

“Right,” he said, clenching his jaw so tight it hurt.

Kaidan’s optimism had soured in the weeks after the crash. The day he’d refused to place Shepard’s name on the wall to join the rest of the dead, the rest of the crew started looking at him differently and never really stopped. 

Kaidan knew they pitied him. Knew they thought he was lying to himself, incapable of accepting that he was waiting for a ghost. 

It wasn't long until he realized they were right. Now, well, it was just a matter of finding the body for a proper funeral. They'd both known the stakes.

Garrus shifted uncomfortably.

"We thought you'd wanna be there. Just in case--"

"Yeah," Kaidan said, voice rasping and exhausted, and stood, ignoring the ache in his bones and the sharp pain when he put weight on his partially healed leg. “Thanks.”

Garrus nodded, and promptly left the room as Kaidan limped after him, a silent procession through the crew deck and into the elevator.

Whenever they weren't scrambling around to make repairs, the ship had been eerily quiet since Shepard died. It felt wrong to be there without him. Like trespassing.

In the elevator, Kaidan eyed the display that read “Captain’s Cabin” with a numb kind of despair. 

He still didn't have it in him to even think about visiting Shepard's room. Half of him wanted to, to bury himself in the black sheets, to sleep where they’d slept. He could close his eyes and just breathe in the scent of Shepard, familiar as breathing once, now almost forgotten.

The last time he lost him, Kaidan hadn’t even had that chance. Now that he did, Kaidan found he couldn’t take it. He’d mourned Shepard once. After that, some part of him knew it was only a matter of time before he’d have to again.

This time was different. Expected and planned for. There were no loose ends, no feelings Kaidan was too cowardly to admit, no words he never got to say. 

Shepard detonated the crucible knowing Kaidan loved him.

As agonizing as the thought was, he knew he needed to let go. He hadn’t had that luxury before. Moving forward was the only choice.

So Kaidan tried to distance himself from the memory of the man he loved. He tried to forget the way Shepard’s voice sounded against his skin, how those piercing eyes softened and warmed when he smiled, his scars, the pale ones that were only visible up close and the deep, rust-red gashes that looked as if they’d never heal. 

Kaidan tried to forget Shepard, the man, his best friend, the love of his life. In his place, he put Commander Shepard, the Alliance legend, the Hero of the Citadel, the savior of the galaxy.

He ran speeches in his head to prepare for the Commander’s memorial service and subsequent interviews, testimonials of his leadership, his tenacity, his tireless dedication to the galaxy and all its inhabitants. 

(That was a lie. Shepard had been very tired, at the end.) 

He kept the tone respectful and somber, kept his feelings strictly professional. Kaidan was just a good Alliance soldier less a great Commander. 

He would be ready when the reporters jammed cameras in his face. The grief they’d try to profit off of would be wholly constructed, a sanitized version of the truth. 

The elevator slowed to a halt. Kaidan and Garrus stepped out into the darkened CIC, empty, save for the sound of bickering in the cockpit.

“--Would have been fixed an hour ago if you had listened to me.”

“Hey, uh-uh, not my fault. If I hadn’t diverted the power we’d have a lot bigger mess on our hands right now.”

“Keelah, don’t be so dramatic. Life support would only have failed a tiny bit.”

A pause. “Okay, for the record, I’m never letting you mess around in my ship again.”

“Calm down, I’m only kidding.”

Garrus sighed.

“They’ve been at this all day,” he sighed, and walked forward along the rows of empty chairs and dimmed screens. Kaidan followed.

“Please tell me you’re close to finished.” Garrus said, and Joker and Tali glanced up from their tinkering. The turian sounded as exhausted as Kaidan felt.

Joker’s expression shifted when he saw Kaidan. The set of his brows was tighter, his mouth pulled in a sympathetic grimace. Tali just stared a moment, then looked back down.

“Very. Should be any second now.” 

Kaidan’s heart jumped into his throat. He knew what was coming. He’d resigned himself to it already. All that was left was the final nail in the coffin. 

With a whoop of triumph from Tali and sudden electronic whirring, the Normandy’s screens came to in a blaze of light.

There was a moment’s pause, then a single notification flashed on the display. As Joker moved to open the message, windows popped up all over, hundreds of videos of reporters against the backdrop of smoking ruins, panicked, static-y voice messages asking after crew members and the fate of the Normandy, messages labelled Alliance Correspondence Emergency Transmission: Please Respond.

The noise was harsh and unintelligible. Kaidan could pick out only a few words

“Evacuation… death toll cl-… No survi-”

“Shit, is there a mute button on this thing?” Joker had to shout over the chaos.

“I thought it was your ship. How do you not know how to turn down the volume?”

“I’m not a comm specialist! Everything’s fried! I'm doing the best I can.”

Neither mentioned EDI’s name, though it hung unspoken in the air. Garrus just shook his head, mouthing something that looked like “spirits.”

“Rannoch is.... --orah, come in… the relays.... We cannot--.... this reaches you. Keelah se-”

Joker’s fingers moved fast as bioengineered pyjaks, but still the chaos continued.

“Massive casualties in the--… some survivors…. stores of medi-gel dangerously l--”

Tali narrowed her eyes at Joker and pushed him out of the way.

“We’re receiving reports- Alliance... teams of.... on the Citadel… life support system failsafe… loss is-- evac… no longer prio... thousands of--”

The ship went silent.

“Bosh’tet,” Tali said, crossing her arms. Her voice was shaky. 

Kaidan felt as if he was holding his breath. Frozen, contorted in terror and grief and pain leered out at them.

"Just-- Just go to a live feed,” Garrus said. His mandibles twitched, again and again.

“Hey, I’m working on it, hold your weird alien horses.”

Then the cluttered screens all flashed to a single display. The signal was fraught with static. The reporter’s voice distorted into layered semitones and hellish electronic discord. A lone asari was visible through the interference, standing in front of a dilapidated building.

London, from the looks of it, though Kaidan wasn’t sure. It could have been anywhere. The reporter’s eyes were tired, haunted.

“--on the Citadel. Alliance troops have confirmed rumors of survivors in the Wards. Names of all those found are listed on our extranet page and the database is being updated in real time. If you are missing a loved one, please--”

Joker closed the stream and opened the extranet. With deceptively steady hands, he navigated to the database. 

The four in the cockpit stared at a dense wall of names, updating so quickly it seemed to flow like water. Joker’s fingers hovered over the searchbar. 

ADMIRAL ANDERSON, he typed first. Seconds later, the name appeared, flanked by three letters: K.I.A.

"Keelah, no," Tali breathed, but they’d all expected this. Garrus placed a hand on her shoulder. Joker's jaw clenched, and he shook his head in disbelief, as if there had been any hope. 

Kaidan moved toward the console. "May I?"

Joker nodded, and Kaidan's hands touched the display. 

Carefully, he typed, fingers remembering how the grooves had felt on the plaque, and the cold, dead weight of the name he had refused to hang. 

He was hanging it now. 

COMMANDER SHEPARD, the display read. Kaidan closed his eyes, and hit search.

**Author's Note:**

> (spoiler alert)
> 
> the second part is in the works, but I may not post it, it depends idk.... if i do, it'll have a much happier ending


End file.
